LONDON — Instagram's fashion stars can be a source of style inspo, ideas and useful tips.

While fashion bloggers' feeds are replete with effortless-yet-flawless photography, reality couldn't be further from the glamorous lives portrayed via social media.

Whether bloggers are publishing posts sponsored by brands, or parading outfits paid for by brands during fashion week, shrewd bloggers and brands have turned social media into a big-buck business.

This monetisation of fashion blogging — a.k.a. "influencer marketing" — has caused something of a rift in the fashion industry, with Vogue's creative digital director lashing out at fashion bloggers who are killing the fashion industry.

"Note to bloggers who change head-to-toe, paid-to-wear outfits every hour: Please stop. Find another business. You are heralding the death of style," Sally Singer — Vogue's creative digital director — wrote in an editors' piece about Milan Fashion Week.

"Rather than a celebration of any actual style, it seems to be all about turning up, looking ridiculous, posing, twitching in your seat as you check your social media feeds, fleeing, changing, repeating," wrote Codinha.

But this incessant checking of social media has nothing to do with vanity — it's pure business.

Mashable talked to a spokesperson for Influencer Marketing Agency — an agency that matches brands with bloggers, vloggers and influencers — to find out just how much money is behind the posts filling our Insta feeds.

According to a spokesperson for the agency, the fee per post is "highly dependent" on the audience the brand wishes to reach and the platform on which the influencer is publishing.

"This of course includes reach, strength of relationship with their followers and credibility," the spokesperson told Mashable.

A photo posted by Kendall (@kendalljenner) on Feb 1, 2016 at 8:51am PST

"Influencers can earn anywhere from below €100 ($110) to 100 times this amount (€10,000, $11,006) for content they create in collaboration with a brand," the spokesperson confirmed.

Jenny Woods, founder of the social media startup for marketing teams Zaapt, told Mashable that a fashion and lifestyle Instagram star with 1.3m followers was recently paid £5,000 ($6,104) for an Instagram post.

"Another brand paid £17,000 ($20,749) for a reality TV star to tweet and Instagram about their brand in a series of posts. The influencer has 1.2m followers on Instagram," Woods continued.

Woods says that an influencer with more than 1 million followers can expect to earn between £5,000 ($6,104) and £20,000 (£24,406) per post.

When it comes to adding a price tag to an Instagram post, the more followers the better. And, the massive reach commanded by social media savvy celebrities like Kim Kardashian West can carry a six-figure sum.

Chris Kyriacou — founder of iSocial social media agency — told Mashable that the fee depends entirely on how engaged the influencer's audience is, and on the "value" of certain influencers.

Earlier this year, a marketing expert toldPage Six that the Kardashians earn hundreds of thousands of dollars per Instagram post.

"Now, for $400,000, you get the Kardashians to post on Instagram," the source told Page Six, referencing makeup, clothing and music as items she frequently posts about.

Mashable
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